The Gift of Kindness
by sdbubbles
Summary: Set Christmas Day 2013; Jac and Hanssen sit and talk of kindnesses past, present and future on Christmas night.


**A/N: First, I know it's after 3am. Sorry! And I don't even know where this came from, but it's set at Christmas of this year, when Jac will (hopefully) be pregnant with her child :)**

**Sarah x**

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"Still here, Miss Naylor?" Hanssen asked a heavily pregnant Jac Naylor. It was Christmas night, and Jac had, rather surprisingly to Hanssen, signed up to be part of the skeleton staff for today.

"Figured I'd get the best of working Christmas Day since Jonny is insisting we spend next Christmas as a _family_," she explained, sounding rather disgusted by the idea of a family Christmas.

"You don't sound so convinced," he noted, sitting down in the chair next to her. He was on duty with nothing to do, bored out of his mind; a conversation with a pregnancy-mellowed Jac didn't seem so repulsive tonight. Perhaps because he had watched her silently struggle with the idea of having a child for months now. Maybe it proved her to be human.

She sighed and picked a chocolate out of the large tin, passing the container to him. "I just can't see myself as a parent. I'll probably be useless at it."

He contemplated what she had said carefully, able to empathise with her there. There was one major difference though: she wasn't running away from it while he had run as far away from it as he possibly could have. And for some reason, the words spilled out of his mouth before he could stop himself. "You cannot possibly be a more useless parent than I was."

"_You've_ got a kid?" she whispered, and he smiled grimly at the sound of her disbelief.

"In theory," he allowed.

"And in practice?" she answered.

He put his head in his hand in a rare display of weakness. "In practice, I've never even met him. In practice, I left his mother when she was still pregnant," he confessed, wondering the hell possessed him to open that big mouth of his in the first place. Perhaps he had just buried this for too long.

Jac looked really quite shocked. "I've never..." she trailed away as she struggled for the words to reply to his confession. "I've never thought of you as a parent. Even when we were in Sweden. I saw a son, not a father."

"Well, that just proves the point, doesn't it?" Hanssen smiled sadly. "I, however, can see you as a mother, but not a daughter."

"That's because I haven't had a mother since I was twelve years old," Jac admitted. He gave her a searching look, wondering what on Earth she meant. She rested her hand on her bump and elaborated, "My mother went live in India and left me here when I was twelve, came back in 2010, nicked my kidney and buggered off back to India." She sounded bitter, but who could blame her, really?

"I see. And you're worried you will make as big a mess of parenthood as she or I did?"

Jac nodded silently. Hanssen sighed gently; there was no way Jac would make a bad parent. She was too strong, and had learned too many lessons already, to do what her mother did, or anything nearly as cowardly as he himself had done.

A nurse handed Jac a chart to look at, smiled briefly at Henrik and walked away, and Hanssen found himself transfixed by this young woman with black hair and green eyes; he recognised her. "What's that nurse's name?" he asked Jac.

"Um, Shona Johnstone," Jac replied, setting the chart down on the desk. "Never shuts up. Makes good hot chocolate though. She's the only one I'll let make it for me, bar Jonny."

"I know her," Hanssen revealed, remembering how they had met when she was thirteen years old. "And she's good at making hot chocolate because I taught her. Though she probably doesn't remember it."

"What?"

"About ten, maybe twelve years ago I worked in a hospital where I ended up covering the ED night shift on a regular basis," he recalled how that arrangement and near about run him ragged. "Shona was thirteen, and her father was constantly in the ED, usually with alcohol-related injuries."

Jac just stared intently at him, waiting for him to continue story. "For two years, she was in and out of that ED like a yo-yo. Never as a patient, but with her father. I used to leave her with a nurse in the staff room out of the business and noise, and would make her hot chocolate while her father was tested and treated according to the levels of stupidity he displayed on a particular night. I always got the feeling that she had nobody; I guess we had that in common. In the end, I taught her how to make the hot chocolate herself."

"Wow," Jac said. "I'm impressed. You broke every rule in the book to make her feel like someone actually gave a damn about her."

"Just don't tell her I told you," Hanssen warned. "That would be kicking the hornets' nest."

Jac grinned and ate another chocolate. "See," she said. "You would make a good dad. I think you just weren't ready for it and _that_ is why you ran away."

It was an odd moment between them; they had never shared a conversation so personal before and yet he trusted her to keep his secrets. He didn't feel the need to remind her that it all stayed between them. It was an unsaid agreement.

She gasped, "Oh, I almost forgot!" and stretched across the desk to pick up a small box, which she tossed to him.

"What's this?"

"Secret Santa," she explained. "Someone was a smart arse and got Jonny a Hearts football shirt. He was deeply offended by it, by the way he left this place ranting about it by five o'clock," she grinned. He raised an eyebrow at her, to which she held her hands up and insisted, "It wasn't me! I know better than to mess with boys and their teams. Who the hell gives a Hibs fan a Hearts shirt, anyway?! I actually think it might have been Arthur Digby. I know he's the star F1 but he's a bit thick like that."

Hanssen gave a small smile at her blunt opinion before opening the silver box carefully. He gave a low chuckle when he read the note in the familiar writing that signed paperwork he saw every day: _A reminder of home for Christmas, since you haven't disappeared back there this year._

"Three guesses who this is from," he smirked at the sarcasm, handing Jac the note. She burst out laughing as he picked the contents of the box up into his hands. It was a small, carved, painted wooden horse. It was the traditional type – red with intricate paintwork. He smiled to himself. "I not entirely certain whether she is being impudent or kind," he admitted.

"What is it?" Jac asked curiously as he handed it to her. She examined it carefully. "It's beautiful."

"It's a Dala horse. Traditional Swedish gift," he explained. She gave it back to him.

"If I didn't know better, I would have said that was a pretty solid attempt at being nice," she replied, pointing at the horse in his hand with a smile. "Come here," she ordered him. He hesitated, wondering what she was about to do before he stood up and took he step towards her; she rolled her eyes and said, "You should feel honoured," as she placed his hand against her bump. "Normally nobody gets to touch her."

He felt the kicking against his hand and smiled gently. "Very honoured," he smirked when she let his hand free.

Unexpectedly, she looked up at him, her eyes betraying her happiness and the slight sympathy when she told him, "I meant what I said. You'd make a good dad now."

"And you will make an excellent mother, and Nurse Maconie will no doubt be father of the century," he replied sincerely.

She smiled up at him but said, "You don't think you're a failure because you messed up being a dad, do you? Because, you know, the one thing you aren't is a failure." It was rare for her to be so kind; maybe pregnancy and the prospect of motherhood had changed her attitude for the better.

"I'm less than sure of that, but thank you anyway," he smiled. "You had best get home. No doubt there are numerous missed calls on your mobile."

"Ugh. If that man gets any more protective, I'll take great pleasure in breaking every bone in his body," she grumbled as she accepted his hand to help her to her feet. As she walked away, he put the horse and the note in one pocket remembered he had something in the other pocket for her.

"Miss Naylor," he called after her. She turned and he walked up to her and handed her a wooden baby rattle he had found among his possessions in his house. Who it had originally belonged to and who had given it to him, he was unsure, but it was fairly old. He was sure of that much. "For the child," he explained to her when she looked slightly bewildered.

"It's lovely," she said, taking it from him gently. "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

She turned and walked away but called back to him when she reached her office, "Merry Christmas, Mr. Hanssen."

He smiled and answered her, "Merry Christmas."

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**Hope this is OK!  
Please feel free to review and tell me your thoughts!  
Sarah x**


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